Getting to ‘No’
The night started, as so many college nights do, with a red cup pressed into a hand. Ubiquitous at tail gates and parties, those bright plastic cups are a harbinger of carnival, of unleashing. The hand around the cup was mine.
I remember many of the details only vaguely, but the cup shines through; I can still taste the sweet-sour drink inside it. No matter how much I sipped — and each sip made the next one easier — the cup remained filled, courtesy of a young man, a fellow college senior, attending to its contents. I liked him, a little; I found his focus — on me — impressive.
I drank from the red cup, and in the next scene from that evening that I can recall, I am on my bed, and he is on top of me. I am resisting, but he is heavy, so heavy, and my limbs so leaden. I am certain he thought he was, as we used to say back then, a totally decent guy. Even now, I can imagine him as someone's loyal husband, a maker of pancakes, his kids' soccer coach. But that night I said no, and still he lay there, massive, pleading, sloppy with beer, for what seemed to be hours (but surely was not), until I finally stopped holding him off. Too close to sleep to rouse myself to outrage, I settled for capitulation, then revulsion.
…In the days following that encounter, I avoided calls from the guy, who so clearly misunderstood the situation that he thought he was courting me; there may have been flowers, but not to apologize. I considered him someone between a brute and an oaf, my own experience falling somewhere between assault and just a bad night. I never felt I was a victim; looking back, I was an English major for whom language failed at a moment when I needed it most.
Getting to 'No'
posted by Whitney Tilson at 2:53 AM
<< Home